Confessions of A Tired Audiologist

Confessions of A Tired Audiologist

...that was not me that dressed Bailey up for Halloween and took her picture. It was Dog Daycare. I'm a nut about Bailey, but I do not dress up my dog.

Our backyard is officially a disaster area. Back in March of 2005, when we re-signed our lease, we pointed out to the landlords that the roof over the back porch had some rotting boards that needed some attention. The landlord said she'd get a handyman or someone out to take care of it, we re-signed the lease and went on with life.

The boards continued to rot, and in July 2006, when our water heater took a crap and the landlords came out, the landlord's husband tried to chastise us about the condition of the porch roof...until we (and his wife) reminded him that it had been discussed over a year ago and they had dropped the ball. So of course, more promises to take care of it - the husband said he'd be back that weekend to fix things. He never showed.

Well, in November, when we sent the rent check, I sent a letter reminding them of the condition of the porch roof, since the rainy season is coming and the rotted boards create a wall of water directly outside our back door, to the point that even the dog won't venture out unless we hold an umbrella for her.

A little over a week ago, the landlord and her husband came out again. They decided to just tear the whole structure down.

I don't think a great deal of planning went into this, because the landlord's husband came back later that afternoon and proceeded to pull it down with a tremendous amount of racket. We hid in the house, since we wanted absolutely no part of this little project of theirs. We would have just replaced the bad boards, but tearing it down was their call.

Anyway, he finally managed to yank the thing down. Then he went home for the day.

He showed up the following day, Sunday, with no pickup truck, and I suspect, with no plan. He told us that his chainsaw chain kept slipping off because the wood was so hard. I think the chain eventually broke.

The picture above is what our backyard looked like for the entire week.

Good thing we weren't planning to have people over for Thanksgiving.

Nails poking out everywhere, nails on the ground all over the place - just what you want when you have a dog running around. We took hammers and tried to hammer down the pointy-outy nails, and we did the daily sweep-up to try to keep nails and slivers out of Bailey's paws.

The landlord's husband finally came back yesterday, on Sunday afternoon. It's sort of more chopped up now, and moved out more onto the grass (which will undoubtedly be dead by the time all that stuff is removed), so I guess it's a little more out of the way.

But it's been over a week and we still have all this crap in the yard. The landlord's husband said he might be over on Wednesday to work on it, but he has to borrow a buddy's pickup truck, so he's not sure.

When he came over that first Saturday, did he not know he'd need to borrow a buddy's pickup to take all the debris out?!

Want some tetanus? Come on over!

While watching the Minnesota Wild game this afternoon, Fox Sports North did a story about Minnesota National Guardsmen in Iraq. They mentioned that they were sorely in need of equipment to play field hockey during their off time, and that a very nice person from Edina, Minnesota had donated something like 80 hockey sticks and some other equipment through a site called "Anysoldier.com."

The site allows soldiers overseas to post "wish lists" for their units - particularly for folks who don't have family able to send letters or care packages. You can view requests from any branch of the military, or break it down (Marines or Coasties only, etc.). Looking through the requests, it's kind of sad - a lot of them just want socks or pens or basic hygeine items that they can't easily get overseas.

If you're looking to do something nice for a stranger, please consider checking out Any Soldier and give some thought to sending something to the men and women who are overseas and away from their families this holiday. I know they'll appreciate it!

Sports Illustrated has declared that the Nashville Predators are among the Worst Dressed Teams in Sports.

(We're not going to discuss number 15 because clearly that was a mistake. Stupid Mr. Blackwell. What does he know, anyway?)

Tonight's Wild game was broadcast entirely en Francais, owing to the fact that the game took place in Montreal. It was a little frustrating, but by the end, I managed to figure out that "but" probably means goal, "inferiores numeriques" is the penalty kill and "superiores numeriques" means power play. Beyond that, I was lost.

Bummer of a game. At one point, it looked like the Wild might make a comeback when they tied up the score at 2 apiece, but it wasn't in the cards. I think the most demoralizing thing was the empty net goal near the end. Ugh. We've got a lot of Wild players out with injuries right now, and Kurtis Foster left during the game and didn't return, which I didn't take as a good sign. Let's hope Friday's game against Phoenix (in St. Paul) goes a little more smoothly.

Seriously. They're this horrible, dried-yellow-mustard-on-a-picnic-table color.

Tonight's game was insane. I didn't get home from work until the second intermission, when the score was 4-6, in favor of Nashville. Somehow, the Wild scored two more goals (thank you Pavol Demitra and Brent Burns) and forced the game into overtime. After a crazy shootout, the Wild emerged victorious.

Sheesh. I'm exhausted. Good to see them get a win after the past couple of games...

(I want to preface this entry by saying that I have it on extremely good authority that the correct pronunciation of "Boogaard" is "BOH-guard," despite the fact that pronouncing it "BOO-guard" kinda goes better with his nickname. Thanks, Ryan!)

Last night, Jasmine, John and I headed up to LA for the Wild/Kings game, and a final attempt to get my jersey signed by Derek Boogaard. Last night's game was part of the Wild Dad's Road Trip, and 16 players and 7 front office people have dads on the trip. I spotted Derek Boogaard's dad (easy to find, with the lettered jersey and all) as Jasmine and I were walking out one of the aisles, and asked if I could have my picture taken with him. He looked at me like I was certifiable, and I explained I was a big fan of Derek's and hadn't managed to get his autograph. He said "He won't give you an autograph?" and I had to explain that I hadn't even managed to make it far enough to ask for an autograph, let alone get one. He graciously let me have my picture taken with him, although I get the distinct impression he thinks I'm a whackjob. What can I say? The blog needs material, and since I keep striking out with Derek, I have to work with what I can get...

It was another exciting game, a real nail-biter (or nail-clencher in my case) at the end. Thankfully, Todd White won the shootout for the Wild and shut up those stupid LA fans. Because I got tickets at the last minute, we were sitting in the corner, at the end where the Wild attack twice. We were also only one section over from where the dads were, which allowed for some gratuitous (and only semi-obvious) gawking. Kurtis Foster looks a lot like his dad, as does Mikko Koivu. The LA fans were horrendously rude, as usual. At one point, a couple of guys were heckling Manny Fernandez, yelling out "Fernandez", and his dad kept looking over. Eventually, his dad began laughing at the idiots, whose heckling had absolutely no effect on Manny's ability to do his job. To further illustrate how classy those Kings fans are, they later began threatening their own goalie.

After the game, we headed out to our usual spot, and there were two buses waiting. It looked good...Jacques Lemaire and Mario Tremblay were up near the buses, and I got Jacques' autograph. Brent Burns came up and I got him to sign my jersey. Unfortunately, one of the buses headed down below at that point and even though I politely asked Jacques Lemaire if any of the players could sign autographs, he said no, but the dads could. (Harumph - some of us don't live in Minnesota and therefore have no chance of going to any of the player appearances!)

Lucky for me, several of the players came up with their dads to board the bus up top, so I got autographs from Pascal Dupuis, Keith Carney, and Kurtis Foster. I'm kicking myself because I totally missed Demitra. He walked four feet away from me and I just choked. Bryan's gonna mock me for that. This was the second time I've come in contact with Kurtis Foster (the first was by accident after the Phoenix game and I was too shocked to utter anything other than "Hi," because players weren't supposed to be up where we were), and I have to say he seems really, really nice. In Phoenix, despite the fact that about six people were staring at him like idiots, he thanked us all for coming out and told us to have a good night. Last night, he chatted for a few minutes, asking if I was from Minnesota, etc. And idiot that I am, I forgot to congratulate him on his goal (which was beautiful, and his first one of the season)! Smooth under pressure, that's me.

Anyway, Mr. Boogaard came up and got on the bus, but no Derek. Michelle told me Mr. B said that Derek had gotten on the other bus down below. Thwarted again! Gah!

I think it may be time to give up my quest for Derek Boogaard's autograph. It just doesn't seem to be in the cards, and I don't want to be like Freaky Chouinard Girl who used to show up at the LA games (wearing a jersey that was way too tight) and would pound on the glass during warm ups, yelling "Maaaaarc" in this bizarre, anguished voice at Marc Chouinard. She was sca-ry. I may want that autograph pretty badly, but even I have my limits, and they stop well short of that.

The Wild play the Kings tomorrow in LA. After 10 games, four cities and three states, I'd pretty much thrown in the towel on trying to get Derek Boogaard's autograph, but I made a last minute decision tonight to try one more time. Bryan will be underway (can't the Coast Guard consider the NHL schedule when they're planning their patrols?!), so our friends Jasmine and John are going to be my hockey buddies, and we'll pray there are no satellite trucks and that security will let the guys board the bus up above tomorrow night. I'll let you know how it goes!

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